LAUSR

In this paper, we proposed a mechanical extraction method using a newly designed single-outlet piston press for measuring oil content in oil palm mesocarp. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed method, which was expected to help facilitate and fulfill the development of other methods for assessing oil palm ripeness and, in some scenarios, to be directly used at oil palm trading sites. The six steps of the proposed method include sampling, drying, shredding, digesting, pressing, and interpreting. A prototype of a single-outlet piston press was constructed and integrated with other equipment to form a prototype of a measurement system. The effects of two factors, including bunch zone and sample form, were studied. Bunch zones were equatorial zone and apical zone, while sample forms were chopped mesocarp and capillaceous mesocarp. A full factorial design of experiments having four treatments was used in the study. For each treatment, we established a calibration equation that related the oil content measured by using the proposed method to the oil content measured by using a standard soxhlet extraction method. The study revealed that only the factor of sample form significantly affected the calibration equation. It suggested that higher measurement precision could be achieved by using capillaceous mesocarp. In this case, the maximum standard deviation of the predicted oil content within the range of predicted value from 50 to 82% was calculated to be 2.66%, which was approximately 3.2% of the maximum predicted value in the studied range.